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Another box ticked
Well after starting a quest to shoot my first Sika 3 years ago and doing it on my first trip, them little Japs have been under my skin. Living in Upper Hutt makes it a bit of a mish to just pop out to chase them. Over the last 3 years I have had 2 trips into the Kaweka’s (one walk in and one Heli) and 4 trips in to the Kaimanawa. After kindly asking a forum member to give me a hand I embarked on a bit of spook and shoot rather than glass and blast. On the Kaweka trips we have seen and shot at but only hit the 1, In the bush much similar but nothing down, The first bush trip saw me seeing a number and shooting and missing 2, Then an overnight 40l Daybag challenge in October last year saw me line up on 1 but no shots were made. Then missed Kaweka trip this year for various reasons I was getting really itchy to get back out and chase them, enter this weekend.
For me being able to sneak in on these critters in the bush was something I wanted to knock off. Fern (my Vizsla) got left at home for a number of reasons and so the balance tipped back slightly towards the deer’s favour.
Anyway with a few of us getting together for the weekend I picked up another forum member in Woodville and carried on our way. Once in camp we headed out for a walk. Long story short we came across a pig bush doing some gardening and my hunting partner gave him a wee education and he ran off unharmed. On the way back to camp we ventured into some nice looking bush that had me thinking a mish the next day back to the same area was on the cards.
Anyway after a -4 frost and some time spent in the sun warming up I headed off. Bumped into another forum member (who I also met last year in a similar area) we sorted areas out and headed off. It was still very cold but very enjoyable, so after about an hour of stalking and being teased by birds making all sorts of deer noises etc I reached a decision, left or right, right won out based on the wind direction. Not more than 2 meters later I look down 30m below me and here is a Sika from the back of the front leg all the way to the rump visible, No head spotted as it was hidden by a tree, but as it was my first sika that didn’t know I was here so it was game on, Up with the scope and yup, it’s a deer, down with the bolt and boom, 140g of Berger was sent in its direction, I saw it hit the deck and then scramble up and off into the scrub, Shit piss fuck, can’t go back to a camp with a story of the nearly was, but as it headed off the crashing was a bit louder that a non-hit deer and trees were shaking like they had been run into I was feeling confident my shot was on, there is always that thought of bugga did I miss, Another up the spout for the Just in case and I went off to where it was standing when the shot was taken. Bugga, no hair or blood, wait some hoof prints……follow for a few meters with still no blood, push some ferns aside following the hoof prints and fark me I hit the lottery….well the lower division at this stage with a good lot of blood on the ground, a few more steps and there it was. Freaken yeah harring on the inside I was, bit of fist pumping etc….you know the feeling, always a bit different when there is no one there to share it with you. I went down and what do you know a nice wee Spiker. A few pics, a cut up and off I went.
So I have just ticked that bush stalked sika off the list, but god damn they are still under my skin, so I will be back. Have shot plenty of reds in the bush but for me having been so close on so many occasions it was great to finally put it to bed so to speak.
As an aside to that we had a fantastic social weekend with meeting some new guys and catching up with some others.
Cheers guys
Hamish
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Good writeup, frost when it grows like that is really amazing looks like mushrooms.
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Good to hear a story like that
